Saturday, May 31, 2014

Meh ... it's a somewhat mediocre scalp on the conservative's Fuck Obama at every turn lodgepole, but The Gadfly is sure that they will milk it for some election year scumbaggery.

The question that military veteran Gadfly has for the Republicans is -- what is your fucking plan to fix the problems with VA care -- or are you only interested in using the crisis for political attack ads?

But The Gadfly already knows the answer to that question ....

Earlier this year, the GOP had a chance to prove that it could fund veterans' health care as eagerly as it borrowed for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Long before the current VA crisis, an event described as "a gift from God" by Dr. Ben Carson, Senate Republicans had a chance to vote on a landmark bill. Before the Senate vote, organizations devoted to the needs of veterans and their families offered widespread support to the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014.

That's a picture of 19 month old toddler Bou Bou Phonesavanh who was asleep in his crib when a bunch of, testosterone amped, Rambo-wannabe SWAT dudes tossed a flash grenade through the window of the home where the baby and his family were visiting friends in Georgia. The grenade landed on the pillow, in the crib where the child was sleeping, and exploded. The man the SWAT Rambos were seeking was a small-time meth dealer who wasn't even in the home at the time of the SWAT Rambo dude's Great Raid.

It would be bad enough if this story were one that you only hear happening once in a blue moon, but the undeniable fact of the matter is that shit like this is happening all over this country every single day - all in the pursuit of that ever elusive, 100% fantastical victory in the 40 year old "war on drugs."

The Gadfly cannot look at that picture of that little baby and wonder what is happening to the soul of this increasingly fascist fucking nation? What perverted set of values says that this behavior by "authorities" in pursuit of a low-level, non-violent criminal is worth maiming babies?

What the fuck is going on in this country????????

Wake up dear readers. Your collective voices screaming at the tops of your lungs are the only thing that is going to stop another toddler from having a grenade blow up in his face.

Charles Pierce over at Esquire's political blog long ago, when it became obvious that some form of voracious, brain eating amoeba had mass infected the brains of most of the conservatives in America, now has simply defaulted to referring to them as the "fucking mole people," implying of course that they are so blinded by the darkness of their aggressive hate and cruelty, willful stupidity, and unbridled selfishness which envelopes their world view, that they are very similar in habit and instinct to the creature known as moles, who live a sightless, solitary existence in subterranean burrows.

Observe the plaintive bleating of the male mole in it's desperate search for fawning attention:

Samuel Wurzelbacher -- better known as Joe the Plumber -- likes guns. And he wants everyone to know why.

"Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you," Wurzelbacher wrote on Thursday in a blog post on his website. "Google 'Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung Il, Castro, Stalin' just for starters."

The Gadfly has been waiting for years for any conservative, anywhere to provide irrefutable and tangible proof that Barack Obama has either taken away their rights to anything, much less a single American's guns, or is plotting to do so before his term in office expires.

And just to put a finer point of dickheadedness on it, that statement comes only a couple of days after [Not] Joe [Not] "The Plumber" wagged his non-plumbing finger at the parents of the dead young people killed by the gunman in in Isla Vista this past weekend that their "dead kids don't trump" 'ol Joe's "constitutional rights" to possess as many killing devices as he damn well pleases.

A couple of things The Gadfly needs to note here. First -- fuck you John McCain. Yup - this idiot Joe "The [Not] Plumber" Wretzleboner is the second ghastly piece of human shit that your 2008 presidential campaign foisted onto the national political stage, along with your vice presidential pick, Caribou Barbie of The Tundra, of which the sanity of our national discourse is still trying to cope with gaping wound of such a supremely insipid and cynical political parry.

Secondly - Joe "The [Not] Plumber" can go fuck himself too. Before the parents of Isla Vista have even had a chance to bury their kids, this goon is mouthing off about how his precious right to amass as many armaments as he wants is infinitely more important than the lives of those dead kids and the aftermath of the lives of their loved ones.

The Gadfly is sick of these fucking gun goons. Sick and fucking tired of them. The Gadfly does not fear these assholes. The Gadfly does not pity them. The Gadfly has simply developed a visceral loathing of them and their cultish culture of death and selfish stupidity. They are a cancer on our society and every American's desire for a peaceful, sane way of life.

As "harsh" as this may sound, the Gadfly has become convinced that only a massacre of the type that struck Newtown or West Virginia Tech occurring in the hallowed halls of an NRA convention has the potential to open the eyes of these asshats ---- ohhh wait! That's right! The Gadfly nearly forgot! When the NRA chooses sites for it's annual gatherings, they choose venues that strictly forbid weapons from being brought in, concealed or otherwise. Apparently the freedom to not be shot by a disturbed lunatic in a public locale is a freedom that the gun goons and the NRA reserve for themselves -- and the rest of society can just suck on it.

And no -- The Gadfly does not truly wish NRA people or gun goon guys suffer the tragedy of having a child's life snuffed out by the random gun violence of a madman -- he was simply trying to make a salient point there about the NRA's hypocrisy and gutlessness. The Gadfly guesses that is the one saving grace that distinguishes his world view from that of the gun goon guys.

Nonetheless ... dear readers, politics is on hold for the moment .... and ... if you haven't seen a post from The Gadfly by at least Wednesday of next week .... send out the search patrols ......... check the morgues and the jails .........

If ur a gun guy, but not a gun goon guy, this post just might appeal to you.

Blogger TBogg fucking details the problem with the modern gun culture:

When I was eight, I attended gun safety courses put on by the NRA at the local community center where thick-necked men with serious faces and butch haircuts promised us hell and worse if we mishandled a rifle or a shotgun. There was no Eddie Eagle cartoon character who spent his time talking about the 2nd amendment because the important thing was to learn not to shoot yourself or someone else. It was serious people teaching the next generation how to safely hunt and not just how to shoot.

I waited another year before I was actually allowed to carry a shotgun, serving instead an apprenticeship in the field, walking and watching and learning and carrying the kill in the back of my new hunting vest.

When the time came, I was given a .410 single-barreled shotgun by my uncle and spent days at a shooting range learning how to lead and squeeze.

The first time I was allowed to hunt, we were walking a dirt-clod field in Imperial Valley during dove season. In dawn’s very early light, I spotted the distinctive beat-beat-glide of a single dove almost directly above us, but way out of range. After pleading with my father to let me take a shot because I had waited so long, he finally relented. I tracked the bird to the best of my then non-existent experience and pulled the trigger. Far above us we saw the dove lurch, followed by a small puff of what were no doubt feathers, and then it plummeted to the ground, the victim of an overachieving bb or two that managed to find its mark.

I was a natural born killer.

Go on . . . . . . . . . .

Depending upon the season, we hunted pheasants, dove, quail, and duck. When it wasn’t hunting season, we fished. On summer nights we walked the edges of the vernal pools that used to dot the parts of San Diego that are now suburbs, gigging frogs for their legs. They really do taste like chicken, as did the rabbits we hunted as they hopped up to those same pools to drink at dusk.

We did this, not for the sport — although there was an element of that –, but because it was a way to supplement what we ate.

And we did this for years, raising and breeding hunting dogs, spending hours in the garage at night reloading our own shotgun shells, hand painting decoys.

We felt safe in the field because the NRA had taught us how to be safe; to know where everyone else was when you pulled the trigger, to keep your weapon pointed at the ground, to open the breech and extract the shells if you weren’t hunting, to keep you finger off of the trigger unless you had reason to pull it.

As I grew older I began to notice a different breed of hunter; men who showed up with multiple shotguns as if they were golf clubs needed for specific shots. While most of us wore jeans, t-shirts and hunting vests, these newcomers dressed like they were going on safari, wearing bush hats, shooting jackets (in the 100 degree heat), and cargo pants with more pockets than there existed implements to fill them. You would see them walking the fields; shotgun draped over one arm, can of beer in the other hand. We learned to stay away from them.

For these men hunting was a manhood thing, a way to get in touch with their alpha male, a way to prove they weren’t soft city dwellers and what better way to do that than to get together with some buddies and shoot some guns at whatever moved.

It was no coincidence that, at this same time (this being early seventies), the NRA changed their focus from hunting programs to promoting gun ownership and defending the 2nd Amendment from imaginary enemies.

Each trip afield meant running into more men concerned with the idea of shooting but unburdened with any concept of the etiquette of hunting. For an adult, all you needed was the cash to purchased a gun and a hunting license and you were good to go forth and kill.

The last time my father, my brother, and I hunted together was pheasant hunting in Imperial Valley. We walked the short-grown alfalfa fields hoping to kick up a pheasant, or watched to see our German Shorthaired Pointer, Candy, go on point. When she did we would instruct her to chase the bird until it flew, at which time it was considered “fair game” to shoot it. Rule of thumb: you do not shoot a bird not in flight. Not cool.

Having worked the field, we returned to our truck to get water. By our truck were several other cars and trucks with hunters standing around talking and smoking and looking for shade in the ninety-degree heat. While we sat on the truck’s tailgate, Candy — ever the worker — kept sniffing around and doing what came naturally to her. Somewhere, possibly by one on the canals that separate many of the fields, she kicked up a pheasant and gave chase, the pheasant running several feet in front of her, refusing to fly. A large man, decked out in a bush hat, cargo pants, and vest with no shirt — his white skin blotchy and red in the heat — immediately swung his shotgun up despite standing amongst of hunters in all directions and fired off two quick shots at the running bird. Poor shot that he was, he missed the bird but sent up two large explosions of dirt no more than two feet in front of Candy’s nose as she skidded to a stop.

It was deathly quiet afterwards as everyone looked at him, stunned by what he had done.

My father quickly walked over to him, cursing all the way, grabbed the shotgun out of his hands by grabbing it by the barrel — no doubt burning his hands — and broke it open ejecting the spent shells. He then threw it end over end into the field. As my father berated him, using words I wasn’t well acquainted with at the time with but have learned to love since then, the hunter (known in family lore now as “The Great White Hunter”). His friends looked away and shuffled their feet, no one daring to come to his defense. I have no doubt, even to his day, had the man shot and killed Candy my father would have shot him if he’d had a loaded shotgun in his hand.

Having verbally unloaded on the man who didn’t dare to look upset that his gun was laying in the field somewhere, my dad said, “Get in the car boys. We’re going home.”

I don’t remember if he said another word during the two-hour drive back to San Diego.

When we got home, we released Candy to the yard while my dad went into the garage and cleaned the pheasants we had shot. Afterward he cleaned the shotguns before sticking them in his bedroom closet without a word.

The Gadfly grew up in a midwestern state ---- hunting, fishing, outdoors activities, and with people who appreciated it. This new culture of the Dirty Harry gun nut has nothing to do with those mostly decent and fair people.

The new breed of NRA sycophants are narcissists more than anything ... they love to show off their armaments in public just because they can and because they know it intimidates people. They are cowards, because who wants to get in to a heated debate with a fucking hot-headed, arrogant loon waving an AR-15 around? The Gadfly has no respect for them.

They're the same assholes who show up in public venues like family restaurants waving their proxy dicks around as The Gadfly has already talked about. They're assholes. They're ignorant. They've been educated by Fox "News" ....

And it's time that decent society slaps their fucking hand and tells them to knock it the fucking off as far as the stupidity goes ....

The Gadfly hopes - beyond hope - that society wakes up to these clowns .. but as the late, great George Carlin said:

Jesus Kripes -- The Gadfly is approaching the middle stage of Grampaville and yet he just cant let go of his youth ... or yoot ...

Whatever .... Bon Scott was one of The Gadfly's indomitable rock and fucking roll heroes as a young, know-nothing little turd from nowhere, America. And the sonofabitch let him down by dying by choking on his own alcohol soaked fucking vomit in the back of a car in south London on February 19, 1980. Yeah .. The Gadfly fucking remembers the fucking date. What does that tell you?

Anyhow, it doesn't alter the soulful vibe that that man injected in to rock music. I dare any fucking modern rock singer to try and duplicate this song and make it sound just as goddamn interesting and exciting:

Ohhhhhh The Gadfly had a glorious Sunday, Memorial Day weekend. The Gadfly's son performed on stage at the local podunk county fair and a good time was had by all.

The Gadfly even managed to slip away from the iron tentacles of Mrs. Gadfly for a few minutes, mingle with the locals and knock back a few fermented beverages ..... ......mmmmm... all in all - good time.

Anyhow, since The Gadfly is not in a politics mood, let's just throw some tunes on man ..... woo hoo!! ...

In his semi-inebriated, happy, raucous, smart-ass frame of mind ... The Gadfly has to go with this to start ....

The Gadfly is just about to head out and throw his lot in with his fellow citizens as they partake in the holiday weekend festivities -- The Gadfly's son is a musician and performing live on stage at his local, podunk county fair this afternoon -- so The Gadfly is going to go and offer some familial support, as well as scarf down a couple of corn dogs and quaff a few ice cold beers.

However, before The Gadfly departs, he would like to share something with you dear readers. Now - a lot of folks, mostly on the right spectrum of our political discourse, ran lickety-split to their fainting couches this past week upon hearing the news that some of America's military veterans had unfortunately died while waiting for care at their local Veteran's Administration facilities. These same people wasted no time in raising their outstretched arms toward the heavens to beseech their creator with their faux outrage, and amid the lamentations of "why lord, oh why?," they found cause to cast near unilateral blame on a single Army General and his Kenyan, usurper emperor in the White House.

Now - rational, fair minded, and informed people who know something about this issue, will tell you that the all too real problems with the quality and level of care being given to our military veterans, are indeed real and most certainly are not befitting a wealthy nation who fervently and incessantly enjoys patting it's self on the back by issuing lofty claims of having the utmost respect and love for their fighting warriors. It is also no secret that this problem has existed for a very long time and across multiple presidential administrations of both political parties.

In the simplest of nutshells here is what is sticking in The Gadfly's craw -- the people rending their garments and gnashing their teeth and beseeching their deity with the most fervent of fervor, just so happen to be the same people who every time an opportunity arises in Congress to actually pass legislation to do something for these veterans and ease the burden of their medical conditions, conditions contracted in their voluntary role of defending this nation's freedom and democracy, are the same goddamn people who suddenly seem to notice that the national checking account is a bit overdrawn and that ◉︵◉ sadly, there just ain't enough coin in the red, white & blue piggy bank to help out the guys and gals in uniform.

Of course it goes without saying that these very same ad hoc bean counting phonies are also, unsurprisingly, the same ones who never miss a vote to slash the taxes of the oligarchs. Never miss a vote to lavish more subsidies on the job off-shoring multinational corporations. Never miss a vote to make it easier for the banks and the financial services industry to steal a few dollars more from the average working stiff, including veterans. Never miss a vote to try and cut Social Security and Medicare and push to privatize it all by handing it over to the Wall Street tycoons.

And they most certainly never miss a vote to funnel more taxpayer money in to the military industrial complex, which quite frankly is the archetypal mother of all military veterans since it is their line of business that, not unlike an assembly line in a factory, is mass producing these damaged veterans with their promotion and support of wars of choice and profit.

The Gadfly acknowledges that there are Democratic politicians who can be lumped in with this same group, but the difference is that they aren't the ones publicly wailing and bemoaning the issue for hypocritical political gain.

So on that note -- let us this Memorial Day weekend, look to the great and iconic American literary figure Mark Twain to put this whole idea of honoring dead soldiers into a bit of a different, and hopefully reflective, perspective.

The Gadfly is going to post Mr. Twain's seminal piece on war and the glorifying of it in it's entirety:

The War Prayerby Mark TwainIt was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fulttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think. “God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, and the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain on your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse on some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”…It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

The Gadfly's sources are clandestinely advising him that there are murmurings deep within the GOPTea hive, that pediatric brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, is stealthily being groomed to be foisted on to the national political scene as the conservative movement's new and improved Herman Cain, great black hope, and all-around nifty new presidential candidate.

All of those statements dear readers, are on the public record and documented. Oh sure - Carson, when confronted with his own words, as most duplicitous conservatives do, tried to walk back some of those idiotic statements, but the video and audio tapes do not lie. Those are the man's actual views, he owns them and there isn't a goddamn thing he can do or say to pretend that it isn't so.

Then, just this past week, Carson went on Fox "News" to mouth off about the real-world crisis going on at the Veteran's Administration and this is what he had to say:

“I think what’s happening with the veterans is a gift from God to show us what happens when you take layers and layers of bureaucracy and place them between the patients and the health care provider,” Carson said, making the now common equivalency between the VA and the Affordable Care Act. “And if we can’t get it right, with the relatively small number of veterans, how in the world with are you going to do it with the entire population?”

[ The Gadfly's eyesight stabilizes after repeatedly slamming his forehead on his desk ] . . . . First off, anyone who can nonchalantly characterize the suffering that our veterans are experiencing due to an inadequate and under-funded health care system as a "gift from God," has got some disturbingly serious, underlying psychological issues going on.

Secondly, Carson, like a good little conservative parrot, appears to have learned his new Fox "News" talking points quite well -- namely the conflating of the Veteran's Administration health care system with Obamacare (the ACA).

The Gadfly has already posted about this, but in the interest of brevity, the simple, irrefutable fact is that the VA system, in it's entirety, is wholly owned by and operated by the federal government. The ACA, on the other hand, is simply a government program, ala Medicare, which facilitates and builds upon public access to the PRIVATE SECTOR health care system. Apples -- meet Oranges. Carson is not stupid - he knows the difference, but would rather appeal to the lizard brain Fox viewers instead of being honest about it.

What puzzles The Gadfly more than anything is this though --- if the conservatives are truly and sincerely interested in reconciling with and reaching out to the African American electoral community, who in the last few major national elections have voted en-masse against the GOP by an incredible 9 to 1 margin --- of all of the qualified conservative African American Republicans out there (and there are actually some out there), why go with the guy with the most ass-backward, hateful, nihilistic views? No - really. How in the fuck is promoting a candidate who is spouting the nonsense that the Affordable Care Act is worse than the human slavery as experienced by African Americans in the first century of this nation's history, a benefit to their movement's minority outreach efforts as well as their electoral prospects?

It truly does paint a damning picture of just how far removed from reality that the conservative movement, and by proxy, the modern day Republican party has become. They really haven't a clue as to just how toxic and obnoxious and unappealing that their ideological message is to, not just African Americans, but also to Latino and increasingly other minority voting blocs. And the longer they keep fucking around and snubbing their noses at those minorities, the closer their movement edges toward the abyss of irrelevancy, for the simple fact is that minorities are the fastest growing bloc of voters and to ignore their interests, and actually just snub your noses at them and treat them like shit, is basically the equivalent of a slow motion suicide of your political movement.

But hey -- don't ask The Gadfly to intervene -- for he really does not give a rat's ass if the GOP wants to slit it's own political throat to appease the Teabagging neanderthals in their base. In fact, The Gadfly will gladly sharpen their blade for them and mop up the blood mess left behind once the deed is done if it's all just the same to them.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

The Gadfly supposes that on a weekend meant to remember a whole lot of motherfuckers who met their earthly demise at the hands of the world's armaments industry, it's only fitting that The Gadfly signs off with this story.

GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — The gunman fired for 10 minutes from his BMW as he made his way down streets filled with university students walking, biking and skateboarding in the beach community near Santa Barbara, picking off people one by one in a deadly rampage that chillingly mirrored threats made on a YouTube video posted that same night. Seven people were killed in all, including the gunman.

A long, long time ago . . . . Memorial Day was a day for reflecting and remembering these human beings:

[ click to enlarge ]

It was a day for ALL Americans to bond and find commonality in our history and our heritage and to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure those bonds endured along with our democracy and it's institutions.

Now . . . for some, it is nothing more than a political football. A day to sow hatred and and suspicion and drive the wedge of discord ever deeper between the country's fractured body politic.

Paul Rosenberg at Salon explains:

This naturally brings me back to my original question — what, exactly, are we remembering on Memorial Day? We can begin by remembering the origins of Memorial Day itself. First celebrated nationally, with funereal ceremonies at 183 cemeteries in 27 states, on May 30, 1868, it was specifically a remembrance of the Civil War dead, originally under the auspices of the Grand Army of the Republic, the organization of Union veterans. Over time, it brought together the remembrance of those who had died on either side of the war. Only after World War I was it expanded to honor all those who have died in America’s wars. This makes it particularly ironic that those at Fox News, and elsewhere in the rightwing media, sometimes seem more interested in starting a new civil war, than remembering the last one.

Earlier this week Rep. Ted Yoho's (R-FL) 2012 comments surfaced. "I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote," he told a cheering audience.

The first and most obvious question that comes to The Gadfly's mind is, what precisely is Tea Party Rep. Yahoo's ... er sorry, Yoho's accepted definition of the word "property?"

Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines the word "property" thusly:

prop·er·tynoun\ˈprä-pər-tē\

1: something that is owned by a person, business, etc.2: a piece of land often with buildings on it that is owned by a person, business, etc.3: a special quality or characteristic of something

Ok - so according to the first intension of the definition shown above, The Gadfly's cell phone or his Dirk sunglasses would be considered "property." The well worn and scuffed motorcycle boots on his feet and the hippie tie-dye shirt on his back would satisfy the definition of the word "property." The raggedy, dog-eared 25 year old copy of Thomas Paine's book 'Common Sense' that The Gadfly cherishes, would most certainly meet the standard for being classified as "property." The Gadfly owns all of those things.

Hmmm -- so The Gadfly is confused now -- for it stands to reason that just about every living, voting-age adult in the country could sensibly be classified as a "property" owner then if we hew to that first intension of the word. No?

Alright then - so obviously Tea Party Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho - could not have been contemplating that first intension of the word "property" when he made his statement that any American citizen wishing to participate in the electoral process of his nation should be a "property owner."

And he certainly could not have been contemplating the third intension of the word in that definition above where the word "property" refers to the inherent "characteristic of something" - for that would not make any sense at all.

So that then leaves us with the second intension of the definition of the word "property":

2: a piece of land often with buildings on it that is owned by a person, business,

And there it is.

Land and/or buildings (structural real estate) = "property."

Now it all makes perfect sense. The message that Tea Party Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, was conveying to his slack-jawed followers was the idea that, just like back in the very early days of the Republic, only land owning males (and white - let there be no mistake about that) were allowed to vote and have a say in how the affairs of their government were managed. Fair enough, but The Gadfly doesn't understand why Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, just didn't come right out and say that to begin with. It sure would have saved The Gadfly all the trouble of having to dissect and analyze what his intent was.

Ok - so Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, only wants land and structural real estate owners to be allowed to vote. Fine - The Gadfly gets it. And apparently Yahoo's, er sorry . . . Yoho's audience, was in full agreement - for according to the news report - they lustily cheered his pronouncement.

Which induced The Gadfly to ruminate a bit . . . . specifically as to the question - is every Florida citizen that showed up at the polling places and who cast a vote for Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, a verifiable land or structural real estate owner? No house renters among them? No apartment renters? No room renters? No mobile home renters? No on-campus students? No homeless?

That would be quite the amazing feat, The Gadfly suspects, if indeed every single individual who cast a vote to send Rep. Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, to Washington to represent their interests was a land or structural real estate owner - dontcha' think?

If you haven't figured it out by now dear readers, the salient point that The Gadfly is making here is that a sitting United States Congressman is advocating that the right to vote, and by proxy, the constitutionally guaranteed right to participate in this nation's electoral process, should be taken away from those American citizens who do not own tangible real estate - in the form of land or structures of significant monetary value.

How does someone with views like that get elected to Congress? What kind of sane thinking citizen would suppose that a politician so ignorant of our Constitution and history of voting rights is someone worthy of representing their interests in the halls of Washington power? It's un-fucking-believable.

And just to put a finer point on it -- can you imagine the howls of the right wing banshees if a liberal Democratic congressman were to publicly pronounce that in his view, only 4-year college graduates should be allowed to vote? Holy fuck! They would be foaming at the mouth rushing to pick up their pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers to march on that congressman's office.

But this is how batshit insane these Tea Party politicians like Ted Yahoo, er sorry . . . Yoho, and their drooling sycophant followers are dear readers. Not only do they not even bat an eyelash when one of their own advocates for rescinding a constitutionally and lawfully guaranteed right for a wide swath of the American populace, including many in their own ideological movement, they fucking cheer for it!!

Sigh . . . . wake up folks. Wake up, before it's too late, to the reality that a substantial portion of your fellow citizenry are riding the short bus to Whack-a-Doodle Town, and they desperately want to control the levers of your government, and by virtue of such, the fate of your democracy and the fate of your future.

----TFG

**Note: go read the talkingpointsmemo.com article linked above and read Harvard history professor Alexander Keyssar's response to Congressman Yahoo's, er sorry . . . Yoho's voting proposal. It's the equivalent of a pro wrestler grabbing his less worthy opponent by the scruff of the neck and violently bashing his head in to the turnbuckle over and over again until the opponent collapses in a dazed, bloody heap on the ring floor. It's beautiful.

A Utah man is now facing federal hate crime charges for threatening to kill a black child of a neighboring Caucasian couple. Robert Keller, a 70-year-old resident of Hurricane, wrote to the family to say he would kill the boy if the child remained in his neighborhood.

Keller told KUTV that he didn’t mean anything by it, “All I wanted to do was open their eyes.” “To me, it’s not a threat, it’s my opinion, which I should be allowed to,” he said, trailing off, before concluding with, “Of course, I wrote it down, which was a mistake.”

What Keller wrote down, in a letter to the family last December, was a direct threat. His hate-filled letter – which concluded with “Get this nigger out!” – explicitly warned the parents that he would kill either the boy or the parents if they did not remove him from the neighborhood.

By Keller’s own description the letter read, “If it was my daughter – I think I wrote that I’d slice his throat or something like that.”

Keller told KUTV that he was inspired to write the letter out of fear that the boy might try to date white girls. “I just said, ‘What’s gonna happen later on down the road, when this black kid starts chasing these girls? Which I’ve seen,” he said. “That’s what set me off. I saw him walking down the street with a white gal.”

Here's where The Gadfly shocks his dear readers by agreeing with Mr. Keller in that yes - his threats to kill the black kid living with his white neighbors, and killing the neighbors if they didn't comply to his demand to remove the child, are indeed his opinions, and he most certainly does have the freedom to express those opinions. Pursuant to that - the authorities then have the freedom to arrest Mr. Keller for death threats and hate crimes and prosecute him under the statutes of the law of the land, and imprison him should a jury of his peers find him guilty. As well, every citizen of our society has the freedom to publicly criticize and condemn Mr. Keller for his loathsome views and behavior and shun him should they see fit to do so.

Friday, May 23, 2014

Proof that voices in numbers and force can stop the stupidity in it's tracks:

A Texas gun rights group has notified members that they are to "immediately cease" taking shotguns and rifles into private businesses unless invited to do so, backing down from a controversial strategy that has led several large restaurant chains to ask patrons to leave their guns at home.

The organization, Open Carry Texas, is one of many groups nationwide that advocate for the right of gun owners to wear and carry firearms openly in public. Photos from a rally by supporters of the group at a Dallas-area Chipotle restaurant went viral this week, prompting the burrito chain to declare that firearms are unwelcome in its restaurants.

On Friday, The Huffington Post reported that Chili's was also reconsidering its policy after a similar rally at one of its San Antonio restaurants. Video apparently taken by a participant in the rally shows a confrontation with a woman, apparently a patron, who scolds the men for bringing large guns into a restaurant where children are eating.

Did these assholes truly believe that major restaurant chains were just going to sit on their hands in silence at the prospect of the gun goon guys strolling around their establishments with AR-15's and sniper rifles slung over their shoulders? And actually -- not even slung --- displaying and waving them around while loaded! Observe:

On Saturday, members of the Dallas County chapter of the gun-rights activist group Open Carry Texas brought along their military-style assault rifles with their appetites for burritos. "I personally carry an AK-47," one member told a local reporter. "There were a few AR-15s there. The rifles were loaded. There's no reason to carry an unloaded weapon—it wouldn't do any good." Openly carrying rifles (but not handguns) is legal in Texas.

What kind of voracious, brain eating amoeba has mass infected the cranial cavities of these people that led them to think that Joe and Jane America would meekly capitulate to the idea of taking their families out for a burger or tacos while a bunch of social misfits doped up on testosterone pills, nicotine and energy drinks are strutting around with loaded weapons of the kind whose primary purpose is ending the lives of other living beings?

Hopefully this is just the beginning of the drawing the line in the sand and smacking these dick-less neanderthals back into their caves where they belong.

Make it clear to these businesses dear readers - that if they allow these buffoons to bring their long guns into their establishments, that you will take your money and your patronage to businesses that do not. If there is one thing that these companies and business people do understand more than anything, it is the concept of losing income and revenue to their competitors.

----TFG

**BTW -- go read the Mother Jones article about this Texas open-carry group and how they have a penchant for targeting and threatening women who have lost children to gun violence and who have dared to exercise their constitutional right to get involved in gun control advocacy activities. Unrepentant fucking cowards who without their killing machines would be nothing but a bunch of sniveling, whining, anti-social, sexually repressed, pre-pubescent men-children who collectively suffer from the condition known in medical circles as Micropenis.

Fox "News" doing what it does best - lying to it's viewers while fulfilling the role of Reich Ministry of Propaganda for the conservative movement:

Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle recently used the Veteran Affairs scandal to criticize Obamacare, but fact checking website PolitiFact said she is just wrong about that.

The White House is under fire over allegations that VA hospitals in Phoenix covered up long wait times, during which 40 veterans died, and that similar coverups happened at other VA hospitals across the country. On Wednesday, Guilfoyle compared the dysfunctional VA health care system to what the entire country will be getting under Obamacare.

"If [Obama] shines a light on that, if we actually have some illumination there, then you're going to see this is really what the rest of you all are going to get: one big fat VA system in the form of Obamacare," she alleged.

PolitiFact explained that while the government funds the VA, private health insurance companies continue to provide coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The website rated Guilfoyle's claim "Pants on Fire," saying, "The VA is owned and operated by the federal government. Its staff are government employees. In contrast, Obamacare builds upon the existing private sector health industry."

Fox bobblehead Guilfoyle knows very well what it is that she is doing. She is deliberately and sneeringly attempting to conflate the Affordable Care Act with the problems going on in the Veteran's Administration so that she can deceive her uneducated, willfully ignorant viewing demographics into believing that the conservative's psycho-babble about Obamacare "death panels" was right all along.

And even though PolitiFact jumped all over the duplicitous bullshit immediately by correctly pointing out the indisputable FACT that the VA is a government owned and operated system and the ACA is simply a government program that facilitates and builds upon access to the EXISTING PRIVATE SECTOR health care industry, that factual information, The Gadfly guarantees you dear readers, will not register so much as a detectable tremor in the brains of the lizard people who comprise the core of Guilfoyle's and Fox's audience.

But this is precisely what Pulitzer Prize winning author, journalist and reporter David Cay Johnston was talking about in an interview with Salon Magazine this week, when he made the following observation about Fox "News" and the liability of their role in the impending bloody revolution that will be the outcome of the right wing oligarch's ceaseless wealth hoarding. Observe:

SALON:When you mention demagogues, are there people currently on the scene that give you a shiver up your spine in that regard, or are you speaking hypothetically?

JOHNSTON: I think it would be easy for someone to arrive in the near future and really create forces that would lead to trouble in this country. And you see people who, they’re not the leaders to pull it off, but we have suggestions that the president should be killed, that he’s not an American, that Texas can secede, that states can ignore federal law, and these are things that don’t lack for antecedents in America history but they’re clearly on the rise. In addition to that, we have this large, very well-funded news organization that is premised on misconstruing facts and telling lies, Faux News (formerly Fox News), that is creating, in a large segment of the population — somewhere around one-fifth and one-fourth of it — belief in all sorts of things that are detrimental to our well-being.

When the dust settles following the implosion and fall of the American empire, and the historians have had a fair amount of time to analyze and catalogue the root causes of it all, Fox "News" and the right wing media lie machine that it is the drivetrain of, are going to be very near the top of the list on that inventory of culprits.

If the GOP really, really was interested in fixing the systemic problems with the Veteran's Administration, they could. However, since the mid-term elections are only five months away, look for them to cynically milk this issue for every ounce of hypocritical wingnut outrage that they can, only to eventually turn their backs on the veterans and backhandedly ignore them once the elections are over and they are no longer useful as propaganda tools.

As a veteran his self, The Gadfly will remorselessly advise that any veteran who casts a vote for the Republicans is in effect casting a vote to screw themselves and their fellow veterans in the ass -- and if that is still not enough to convince you to vote for anyone other than the GOP, then don't come crying to The Gadfly when that ass-reaming begins and the resultant pain intensifies accordingly.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The Gadfly has said it from the very first day that the Teabagger's burst forth with all of their hateful ugliness on to the national political stage --- and The Gadfly's prescient warning to the Republican establishment that --- "if youlie down with dogs, you get up with fleas" --- obviously has gone unheeded:

Authorities say the vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party and two other men conspired with Clayton Kelly to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.

Mark Mayfield of Ridgeland, an attorney and state and local tea party leader, was arrested Thursday along with Richard Sager, a Laurel elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of "extensive medical conditions." All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.

The Teabaggers, in their thuggish zeal to take down long time, old school (meaning he occasionally and reasonably compromises with evil Democrats) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, not only dug deep in to the barrel of dirty tricks, they clawed their way right through the bottom of that barrel and burrowed themselves in to the leaking, toxic muck beneath it.

Jeebus fucking Kripes -- breaking into the nursing home where Cochran's ill wife was bedridden and taking photos of her, and then trying to use those photos to make a campaign attack ad??

They truly are some sick fucking assholes - and cowardly, unscrupulous ones at that.

But that is the face and the morals of your Tea Party America --- cherish and adore them.